Last Days of the Sicilians: At War with the Mafia: the FBI Assault on the Pizza Connection - Hardcover

Blumenthal, Ralph

9780747503170: Last Days of the Sicilians: At War with the Mafia: the FBI Assault on the Pizza Connection

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0747503176 ISBN 13: 9780747503170

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 1988

The dramatic story of the most successful criminal investigation ever, in which the FBI dealt a blow to the Sicilian Mafia and its worldwide drug trade. The first clues to the existence of a clandestine network of Sicilians in the midst of strife-torn American Mafia, emerge from the Brooklyn restaurant massacre of Bonnano family boss Carmine Galnate in 1979. A pair of agents pick up the trail which leads them all over America, to Rio and Palermo, until they eventually uncover the most lucrative heroin racket ever, worth more than a billion dollars. The Mafia however, are not their only enemies - they must also fend off jealous and important bureaucrats and crooked cops, who come close to blowing the case.

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From Publishers Weekly:

The Pizza Connection case is assumed to have begun with the murder of mob boss Carmine Galante at a Brooklyn restaurant in 1979. In 1987, after what is called the government's most effective assault on organized crime in its history, the case ended with the convictions of 18 defendants. What took place in those eight years is the basis New York Times reporter Blumenthal's book, a work impressive for its tying together of so many seemingly disjointed elements. Tracking down the participants in the Pizza Connection posed such problems because the group represented a new, secret franchise of the Sicilian Mafia in the U.S. and Italy, many aspects of whose operations are still a mystery. Blumenthal accentuates the tireless role of the post-Hoover FBI and the dedication of lawmen in general. Major ad/promo.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Picking up where the French Connection ended is the story of a previously unknown Sicilian mafia, which ruled over a multibillion-dollar global heroin and money-laundering network. Known as "The Pizza Connection," this drug distribution pipeline operated here through anonymous pizzerias and involved some of America's largest financial institutions. Blumenthal tells this intricate story incisively and entertainingly by focusing on the efforts of two FBI agents in what became the agency's largest criminal investigation, leading to the federal courts' longest trial. Shana Alexander's The Pizza Connection: Lawyers, Drugs and the Mafia (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988) is a best seller, but readers will do better with Blumenthal. Jerry Maioli, Western Lib. Network, Olympia, Wash.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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